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IN  MEMORIAM 
FLORIAN  CAJORI 


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COMMEMORATION 


THE    FIFTIETH    ANNIVERSARY 


DEDICATION  OF  THE  HOPKINS  OBSERVATORY 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE 


1888 


THE    DEVELOPMENT  OF  ASTRONOMY   IN   THE    UNITED   STATES 


A    DISCOURSE 

READ  JUNE  2j,  1888 

TO  COMMEMORATE  THE  FIFTIETH   ANNIVERSARY 


OF  THE 


DEDICATION 


OF   THE 


HOPKINS  OBSERVATORY 


OF 


WILLIAMS   COLLEGE 


BY  TRUMAN  HENRY  SAFFORD,  PH.  D. 

<••       — 

FIELD    MEMORIAL   PROFESSOR   OF    ASTRONOMY 


WILLIAMSTOWN,    MASS 
PUBLISHED    BY    THE    COLLEGE 

1888 


CAJORI 


DISCOURSE 


ABOUT  two  hundred  years  ago  Isaac  Newton  published 
his  famous  "  Principia "  ;  the  English  title  is  "  The 
Mathematical  Principles  of  Natural  Philosophy."  From 
that  epoch  dates  modern  astronomy ;  for  the  book  laid  down 
the  law  of  universal  gravitation,  according  to  which  the 
motions  of  the  moon  and  planets  are  governed.  The  same 
law  holds  good  to  the  remotest  bounds  of  the  universe ; 
comets  obey  it  in  their  journeys  into  far  distant  space,  and 
double  suns,  in  many  solar  systems,  circle  around  each  other 
in  obedience  to  its  formula. 

From  the  discovery  of  this  far-reaching  law  of  nature,  the 
most  delicate  and  exact  observations  became  necessary  to 
test  it ;  for  from  its  very  essence  it  must  have  an  exact  fulfil- 
ment. Observers  must  now  carry  their  work  to  the  last 
degree  of  delicacy  ;  they  must  study  the  structure  of  the 
human  eye  to  learn  what  is  the  highest  precision  attainable 
by  the  sense  of  sight,  when  aided  by  the  best  optical  glasses. 

Newton  himself  had  a  small  observatory  at  Cambridge  (in 
England),  where  he  was  a  professor;  but  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  he  himself  should  watch  the  heavens  nightly. 
His  mighty  genius  was  too  fully  occupied  with  his  great 
mathematical  problems  ;  among  which  is  to  be  reckoned  the 
invention,  independently  of  Leibnitz,  of  the  calculus. 


Charles  the  Second,  bad  man  as  he  was,  possessed  human 
sympathy  enough  to  found  an  observatory,  to  preserve  his 
sailors  from  shipwreck.  Navigation  was  then  extremely 
dangerous ;  there  were  no  guides  across  the  ocean.  Such 
guides  were  to  be  found  in  a  knowledge  of  the  motions  of 
sun,  moon,  and  stars,  to  be  gained  by  the  patient  labors  of 
astronomers.  So  the  Greenwich  Observatory  began ;  the 
first  Astronomer  Royal,  a  contemporary  of  Newton,  was  the 
Rev.  John  Flamsteed. 

In  1705  Edmund  Halley  found  that  the  great  comet  of 
1682  was  periodic,  and  would  return  in  1758  ;  it  did  so  return, 
its  orbit  was  again  calculated  by  others,  and  its  next  appear- 
ance predicted  for  1835.  As  we  shall  see,  this  last  coming  of 
Halley's  comet  was  influential  in  the  foundation  of  American 
observatories.  Halley's  calculations  were  made  to  test  and 
exemplify  his  great  master  Newton's  theory,  of  which  they 
furnished  a  brilliant  example.  Who  will  not  say,  when  this 
fine  comet  returns  in  1910  that  it  furnishes  a  new  proof  of 
the  law  of  gravitation  ?  In  fact  Newton  must  be  considered 
the  best  astronomer  of  all  past  ages. 

At  Flamsteed's  death  Halley  succeeded  him  as  Astronomer 
Royal ;  but  he  was  then  an  old  man,  and  added  little  to  his 
former  reputation.  James  Bradley,  like  Flamsteed  a  clergy- 
man of  the  Established  Church,  was  Halley's  successor;  it 
was  he  who  first  made  Greenwich  Observatory  what  it  now  is, 
the  most  prominent  one,  all  things  considered,  in  the  world. 
About  1750  he  obtained  new  instruments,  and  began  the 
great  work  of  his  life, —  a  magnificent  series  of  meridian 
observations,  which  is  indispensable  to  all  who  wish  to  know 
anything  about  the  stellar  motions,  or  to  follow  sun,  moon, 
and  planets  in  their  apparent  courses.  A  most  eminent 


living  German  astronomer  has  spent  many  years  in  recal- 
culating Bradley's  observations,  and  is  now  publishing  his 
results. 

Bradley  was  followed  by  Nathaniel  Bliss,  who  was  an  in- 
different observer  ;  and  in  a  few  years  by  Nevil  Maskelyne, 
who  was  Astronomer  Royal  for  the  half-century  which  began 
with  our  colonial  troubles  and  ended  with  the  war  of  1812. 
Maskelyne  possessed  some  eminent  qualities  as  an  observer, 
but  lacked  others.  He  discharged  an  assistant  for  noting 
time  differently  from  himself;  it  was  reserved  for  an  abler 
man  to  find  out  that  "  personal  equation  "  is  a  universal  phe- 
nomenon among  observers, —  that  no  two  observe  times 
exactly  alike.  The  poor  fellow  was  really  an  excellent 
assistant.  Maskelyne's  great  service  was  the  establishment 
of  the  Nautical  Almanac,  the  sailor's  indispensable  compan- 
ion. The  French  had  had  something  of  the  kind  for  many 
years,  however  ;  I  have  wondered  whether  John  Paul  Jones 
used  his  enemy's  book  in  guiding  his  ships  across  the  ocean, 
or  that  of  our  French  friends,  in  a  foreign  language. 

I  have  premised  these  few  things  about  English  astronomy, 
as  our  own  was  naturally  based  upon  it.  We  had  not  yet 
declared  our  scientific  independence,  were  in  fact  thoroughly 
colonial  in  our  methods  of  scientific  teaching.  Harvard  re- 
ceived from  an  English  benefactor,  Thomas  Hollis,  the  money 
for  the  foundation  of  her  professorship  of  mathematics  and 
natural  philosophy ;  and  English  text-books  were  reprinted 
and  used  in  some  of  our  colleges  till  within  the  present  cen- 
tury. The  teachings  of  the  colleges  were  probably  tradition- 
al, and  were  not  based  upon  independent  research  ;  but  practi- 
cal necessities  soon  required  the  employment  of  astronomical 
observers. 


If  you  look  at  a  map  of  Massachusetts  you  will  perhaps 
notice  the  extremely  rough  way  in  which  the  State  is  divided 
into  counties  and  townships.  Clarksburg,  near  us,  is  six 
miles  long  from  east  to  west,  by  two  in  breadth ;  Hancock, 
fifteen  long  from  north  to  south ;  Cheshire  has  twenty-two 
corners.  The  boundaries  of  our  counties  are  extremely  irregu- 
lar lines,  and  even  those  of  the  State  by  no  means  plain  and 
simple.  All  this  confusion  of  landmarks  grew  out  of  old- 
world  habits  ;  we  have  even  an  "  enclave  "  in  Cohasset,  which 
belongs  to  Norfolk  County,  although  surrounded  by  part  of 
Plymouth. 

Boundary  disputes  came  up  everywhere  in  the  colonies  ; 
the  people  of  Bennington,  New  Hampshire  grantees,  fought 
the  New  Yorkers,  who  in  their  turn  appear  to  have  established 
an  outpost  on  the  Connecticut  River.  Many  colonial  grants 
had  been  based  upon  parallels  of  latitude  and  meridians  of 
longitude ;  I  was  myself  called  in,  fifteen  years  ago,  to  assist 
in  determining  a  Canadian  boundary  line,  which  was  a  contin- 
uation of  a  meridian  through  Illinois. 

In  1767  the  proprietors  of  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  sent 
to  England  for  two  astronomers  to  settle  the  parallel  of  lati- 
tude between  the  two  colonies.  In  Massachusetts  a  similar 
parallel  had  been  wrongly  run ;  to  this  mistake  we  owe  the 
inclusion  of  the  village  of  Williamstown  in  Massachusetts 
instead  of  Vermont.  The  astronomers  who  were  called  in  to 
fix  the  Pennsylvania  boundary  were  Charles  Mason  and  Jere- 
*^>jqigh  Dixon  ;  and  these  were,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  first 
trained  observers  ever  employed  in  the  United  States.  Mason 
had  been  Bradley's  assistant  at  Greenwich  ;  and  the  German 
whom  I  have  mentioned  has  discovered,  by  the  handwriting 
in  the  original  books,  which  observations  were  made  by 


him,  and  which  by  Bradley  and  the  others.  He  seems  to 
have  been  an  excellent  observer.  He  had  afterwards  made 
many  scientific  journeys,  and  had  done  much  by  calculation 
to  improve  the  lunar  tables.  Dixon  was  of  course  Mason's 
assistant,  and  is  less  known. 

The  work  done  by  these  two  astronomers  was  the  first 
piece  of  accurate  measurement  in  this  country,  and  perhaps 
it  included  the  first  parallel  of  latitude  ever  run  out  as  a 
boundary. 

It  is  not  easy  to  cut  one's  way  through  the  forest,  to 
spend  the  nights  in  watching  the  stars  and  the  days  in  moving 
on  through  the  woods  ;  to  carry  on  horse-  or  mule-back  the 
most  delicate  instruments,  and  watch,  (I  can  almost  say), 
every  step  of  the  beast,  to  see  if  he  gives  the  chronometers 
any  jar ;  to  make  the  most  refined  calculations  under  the 
most  difficult  conditions.  It  is  easier  to  deal  with  mathemati- 
cal formulae  by  a  warm  fire  in  a  pleasant  room,  or  even  to 
watch  the  stars  in  a  well-appointed  observatory.  But  practical 
astronomy  of  the  kind  brought  here  by  Mason  and  Dixon  is 
useful  in  all  distant  explorations,  and  is  admirably  adapted  as 
a  training  for  young  observers.  We  have  since  had  much  of 
it  in  this  country,  and  in  our  scientific  development  it  has 
been  of  inestimable  benefit. 

About  the  same  time  an  American  astronomer,  David  Rit- 
tenhouse,  was  making  a  reputation.  On  the  father's  side 
Rittenhouse  was  Dutch ;  his  family  were  paper-makers  from 
Arnhem  on  the  Rhine  in  Guelderland.  He  was  self-educated  ; 
had  read  Newton's  Principia  and  the  other  necessary  mathe- 
matics, and  taught  himself  the  clockmaker's  trade.  Those 
were  the  days  of  the  tall  hand-made  clocks,  now  so  much 
prized  as  ornaments  ;  and  their  construction  was  a  matter 


8 


requiring  much  skill.  In  1767,  Rittenhouse,  born  the  same 
year  as  George  Washington,  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  and 
may  have  indulged  hopes  of  making  the  boundary  survey  for 
his  native  State,  Pennsylvania.  But  he  was  only  a  colonist ; 
the  proprietors  employed  him  in  some  preliminary  rough 
work,  but  sent  "  home  "  as  the  phrase  is,  for  their  astrono- 
mers. It  should  have  been  Mason  and  Rittenhouse,  rather 
than  Mason  and  Dixon  ;  Mason  indeed  found  America  much 
to  his  taste,  and  returned  and  settled  in  this  country. 

In  1769  came  the  transit  of  Venus  ;  that  phenomenon  which 
occurs  twice  in  a  century  only,  and  to  most  parts  of  the  world 
is  visible  but  once  during  that  time.  Some  of  us  remember 
it  in  1882,  when  astronomers  were  sent  all  over  the  world  ; 
I  visited  the  party  sent  from  Germany  to  Hartford,  Conn., 
and  was  much  impressed  with  their  less  haste  (but  more 
speed)  than  is  natural  to  the  American  observer.  I  had 
previously  learned  the  same  lesson  from  engineer  officers  in 
our  army.  But  in  1769  the  transit  was  the  only  good  means 
of  rinding  the  earth's  distance  from  the  sun  ;  a  distance  which 
has  fluctuated  between  ninety-two  and  ninety-six  millions  of 
miles  since  my  remembrance.  It  is  now  pretty  well  settled 
as  between  ninety-two  and  ninety-three  millions  ;  but  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  years  ago  it  was  rather  uncertain.  Ritten- 
house built  a  little  observatory  near  his  house  at  Norriton, 
Pa.,  and  was  of  great  help  to  others,  who  observed  the  transit 
in  and  near  Philadelphia.  The  event  caused  much  interest  in 
astronomy,  and  added  to  the  impulse  which  it  received  from 
Mason  and  Dixon's  labors. 

In  later  years  Rittenhouse  was  much  employed  as  a  bound- 
ary commissioner  ;  among  other  work  of  this  kind  our  own 
West  line  along  the  ridge  of  the  Taconics  was  settled  by  his 


efforts  ;  it  has  been  lately  resurveyed  and  found  as  well  done 
as  was  to  be  expected  from  his  instruments. 

He  was  also  an  early  inventor  of  the  "  collimator,"  a  device 
for  obtaining  a  meridian  mark  without  going  far  away  ;  it  has 
lately  come  back  from  Germany,  where  it  was  re-invented,  and 
is  now  employed  in  the  Field  Memorial  Observatory. 

In  general  science  the  two  ablest  colonial  Americans  were 
undoubtedly  Benjamin  Franklin  and  Benjamin  Thompson. 
Franklin,  as  we  all  know,  drew  the  lightning  from  heaven, 
and  proved  its  identity  with  electricity.  His  services  as  a 
diplomatic  agent  in  France  were  greatly  helped  by  his  scien- 
tific reputation  ;  returning  to  America  he  was  instrumental 
in  founding  the  two  early  academies  of  science,  the  American 
Academy  at  Boston,  and  the  American  Philosophical  Society 
at  Philadelphia.  Both  these  have  done  useful  work,  recorded 
in  their  Memoirs  and  Proceedings.  Thompson  was  so  unfor- 
tunate as  to  be  a  tory  ;  not  a  bitter  one,  but  yet  enough  to 
make  him  an  exile,  and  a  great  loss  to  his  country.  He 
served  in  the  English  army,  went  afterwards  to  Bavaria,  where 
he  laid  out  the  "  English  Garden,"  the  fine  park  of  Munich  — 
it  should  have  been  called  the  "American  Garden" — and 
then  to  France.  In  his  peregrinations  he  was  knighted  as 
Sir  Benjamin  Thompson,  and  afterwards  ennobled  as  "  Count 
Rumford."  In  his  old  age  he  did  not  forget  his  native  land, 
but  left  a  part  of  his  fortune  for  prizes  to  American  investiga- 
tors of  light  and  heat,  and  another  part  for  a  Rumford  Pro- 
fessorship at  Harvard. 

After  the  Revolution  the  first  great  astronomer  of  this 
country  was  Nathaniel  Bowditch  ;  born  in  1773,  and  dying  in 
1838,  he  had  the  fortune  to  be  brought  up  and  to  live  in  free 
America.  He  came  of  a  family  of  shipmasters  ;  had  but  few 


10 


opportunities  of  education,  but  gave  his  whole  leisure  as  a 
mechanic's  apprentice,  to  learning.  When  a  young  man  he 
went  to  sea  as  a  supercargo,  and  continued  his  mathematical 
studies  on  long  India  voyages  ;  he  learned  Latin  and  French 
for  the  sake  of  the  sciences.  When  twenty-nine  years  old  he 
went  to  the  Cambridge  commencement ;  his  ship  was  then 
wind-bound  in  Boston  Harbor,  and  he  heard  to  his  utter  sur- 
prise that  he  was  made  a  Master  of  Arts. 

At  that  time  he  had  edited  for  America  John  Hamilton 
Moore's  Navigation  ;  its  errors  were  so  many  that  he  re-wrote 
the  entire  book,  and  published  it  as  "  Bowditch's  American 
Practical  Navigator."  The  work  became  famous,  and  brought 
him  in  a  modest  fortune.  By  and  by  he  was  able  to  give  up 
his  seafaring  life  and  enter  on  business  at  Salem,  afterwards 
at  Boston ;  meanwhile  he  continually  corrected  and  improved 
the  "  Practical  Navigator,"  so  that  it  has  long  been  the  best 
book  of  its  kind  in  the  English  language. 

While  successful  in  business,  owing  to  strict  method  and 
sterling  integrity,  he  was  able  to  do  much  to  further  astrono- 
mical science.  He  observed  eclipses,  meteors,  comets ;  cal- 
culated the  orbits  of  these  bodies,  learned  German  in  order  to 
read  the  writings  of  Olbers  and  others  on  such  subjects  ;  and 
finally  translated  and  published  at  his  own  expense  the  great 
treatise  of  Laplace  on  "  Celestial  Mechanics,"  with  important 
additions  from  the  works  of  the  German  astronomers.  Mean- 
while other  French  mathematical  books  of  a  more  elementary 
character  had  been  translated  and  published  at  Cambridge,  as 
well  as  by  the  West  Point  professors.  The  military  school 
was  established  early  in  the  century,  but  received  its  chief 
development  after  1817.  During  our  Revolution  we  had  em- 
ployed continental  engineers,  Kosciuszko  among  them,  and  the 


1 1 


French  Revolution  had  brought  others  to  this  country,  some 
of  whom  became  instructors  at  West  Point.  The  French 
mathematics  thus  supplanted  the  stiffer  English  text-books, 
including  Euclid,  both  at  West  Point  and  some  of  the  colleges  ; 
and  John  Farrar,  professor  at  Cambridge,  led  his  pupils  pretty 
far  along  in  these  studies. 

Among  Farrar's  students  was  a  young  friend  of  Bowditch's, 
Benjamin  Peirce,  who  soon  showed  a  profounder  mathemati- 
cal ability  than  Bowditch  himself.  Other  Bostonians  interested 
in  astronomy  were  Robert. Xreat  Paine,  a  very  enthusiastic  and 
careful  observer,  who  went  over  sea  and  land  to  observe  solar 
eclipses,  and  determined  latitudes  and  longitudes  in  many 
places,  especially  in  Massachusetts,  with  sextant  and  chrono- 
meters. Simeon  Borden  made,  about  half  a  century  ago,  a 
triangulation  of  the  State,  which  with  Paine's  latitudes  and 
longitudes,  gave  a  measure  of  the  earth,  which  is  by  no 
means  seriously  inaccurate,  considering  the  smallness  of  the 
instruments,  and  the  moderate  size  of  the  territory. 

Meanwhile  the  United  States  had  begun  a  general  survey 
of  its  coasts.  Early  in  the  century  there  came  hither  a  Swiss 
astronomer  and  geodetic  surveyor,  F.  R.  Hassler.  He  was 
for  a  time  professor  at  West  Point :  he  became  known  as  a 
man  of  high  scientific  attainments  and  practical  ability,  and 
began  the  survey  after  furnishing  a  better  detailed  plan  for 
it  than  any  of  his  competitors.  This  work,  however  soon  lost 
favor  with  Congress,  was  interrupted  for  years,  and  begun 
again  in  1832.  He  was  successful  in  training  up  an  able  set 
of  assistants,  and  was  able  to  make  a  good  beginning  of  the 
Survey.  Meanwhile  the  West  Point  school  had  educated 
many  promising  pupils,  and  the  engineers  of  the  army  began 
to  be  skilful  in  carrying  on  astronomical  and  other  higher 


121 


surveys,  taking  up  the  work  of  Rittenhouse  and  other  civil- 
ians, and  improving  on  the  former  methods. 

One  excellent  astronomer  among  the  army  officers  was 
James  D.  Graham,  who  had  much  the  same  characteristics  as 
Paine,  whom  I  have  mentioned.  Both  were  admirable  sextant 
observers,  and,  in  general,  could  obtain  very  accurate  results 
with  very  moderate  instruments.  Neither  of  them  felt  quite 

v     at  home  with  the  giant  telescopes  of  modern  times. 

At  Yale  College  a  good  telescope  of  moderate  size  was  pro- 
cured as  early  as  1832.  In  that  year  and  the  next  occurred 
the  great  November  shower  of  meteors,  which  happens  two 
or  three  times  every  thirty-three  years.  The  teaching  power 
of  Professor,  Olmsted,  the  telescope  of  five  inches'  aperture, 
the  meteoric  shower,  and  later  Halley's  Comet,  seem  to  have 
aroused  a  good  deal  of  astronomical  enthusiasm  at  New  Haven, 
and  for  a  few  years  a  number  of  the  students  turned  their 
attention  to  astronomy. 

The  telescope  would  have  done  better  service  had  there 

been  an  observatory;   but  it  was  set  up  in  the  tower  of  a 

college  building,  and  rolled  upon  casters  over  an  unsteady 

...floor ;  few  accurate  observations  were  made  with  it.     Of  the 

/  mathematicians   and   astronomers    graduated  in    those  days, 

Mason  and  Stanley  died  young,  Loojrus  and  Lyman  are  still 

aged  professors  at  New  Haven,  but  Chauvenet,  on  the  whole 

the  most  eminent,  never  returned  to  the  college.     He  went 

V    into  the  United  States  Service  as  Professor  of  Mathematics 

'*  in  the  Navy,  and  was  one  of  the  most  important  men  at  the 

Naval  Academy  founded  by  Secretary  Geo.  Bancroft.     He 

removed   to   St.   Louis  and  became  head  of  the  Washington 

University  in  that  city,  where  he  died.     Chauvenet  was  the 

son  of  a  Frenchman  who  married  in  America,  and  combined 


in  many  ways  the  characteristics  of  the  two  nations.  From 
his  father,  he  received  a  careful  training  in  the  French  lan- 
guage, and  his  books  exhibit  much  of  the  elegance  of  the 
writers  of  that  nation.  His  "Spherical  and  Practical  Astron- 
omy" is  probably  the  best  book  on  the  subject  in  any 
language ;  I  see  it  quoted  abroad  as  well  as  at  home  ;  it  is  an 
inexhaustible  store  of  the  best  mathematics  of  the  subject. 

Half  a  century  ago,  then,  American  astronomy  in  a  practi- 
cal form  was  beginning  to  show  itself.  About  Boston  there 
were  three  or  four  amateur  observers  of  a  good  deal  of  skill. 
One  of  the  best  was  the  chronometer  maker,  William  C ranch 
Bond,  who  had  a  little  private  observatory  in  Dorchester ; 
Paine  and  Bowditch  were  others.  Peirce  and  Lovering  were 
young  professors  at  Harvard.  Bowditch  had  published  his 
translation  of  the  Me"canique  Celeste,  copies  of  which  he  gen- 
erously gave  to  libraries  and  to  mathematical  students.  At 
New  Haven  there  was  much  interest,  and  some  effort  to 
make  valuable  observations  ;  and  the  college  was  graduating 
more  young  mathematicians  than  it  had  usually  done. 

In  the  government  service  were  skilled  observers,  who 
had  at  their  command  fairly  good  instruments  of  moderate 
dimensions ;  but  there  was  no  permanent  observatory  at 
Washington,  or  elsewhere  in  the  country.  About  this  time 
Captain  Wilkes's  exploring  expedition  sailed  on  its  long  voy- 
age around  the  world.  Wilkes  will  be  remembered  by  his 
seizure  of  the  Trent,  rather  than  by  his  earlier  reputation  as 
a  scientific  explorer.  In  these  voyages  it  was  intended  to 
determine  the  longitude  of  many  places  by  observations  of 
the  moon,  and  it  became  necessary  to  make  similar  observa- 
tions on  land  at  known  places.  A  young  naval  officer,  Lieu- 
tenant Gilliss,  was  instructed  to  make  such  observations.  His 


transit  instrument,  of  very  modest  dimensions,  was  set  up  on 
Capitol  Hill  at  Washington,  under  a  temporary  shed  ;  and 
a  fine  clock  was  placed  along  with  it.  There  Gilliss  observed 
very  regularly  from  1838  to  1842. 

Similar  observations  were  made  at  Dorchester  by  W.  C. 
Bond,  under  contract  with  the  Government.  But  these 
beginnings  of  astronomical  works,  which  led  later  to  the 
establishment  of  observatories,  were  themselves  subsequent 
to  the  building  of  the  Williams  College  Observatory  by 
Albert  Hopkins.  Almost  from  its  foundation  our  College 
has  had  instructors  who  were  lovers  of  natural  phenomena, 
and  science  has  in  a  modest  way  been  long  encouraged  here. 
Chester  Dewey,  an  early  professor  in  this  College,  was  the 
first  scientific  lecturer  I  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing.  He  was 
teaching  physics  and  chemistry  in  a  little  medical  school  in 
Vermont,  and  I  well  remember  how  I  was  interested  in  a  lec- 
ture on  heat  which  I  was  allowed  to  attend.  In  the  very  early 
i  time,  years  before,  of  his  professorship  here,  he  taught  all  the 
/  sciences  of  the  course,  or  nearly  all ;  his  specialty,  later,  was 
a  branch  of  botany.  Eaton  and  Emmons  will  also  be  remem- 
bered among  our  professors,  as  men  of  original  views  ;  but 
I  think  we  are  indebted  to  Albert  Hopkins  for  much  of  the 
impulse  toward  the  direct  study  of  nature  which  has  long  pre- 
vailed here. 

When  Mark  Hopkins  was  made  President  in  1836,  his 
brother  Albert  had  been  some  years  an  instructor  in  the 
College.  In  1834  he  had  gone  abroad  to  procure  philosoph- 
ical apparatus,  and  learn  something  of  the  European  methods 
of  investigation  and  teaching.  At  that  time  the  impulse  to 
scientific  study  which  was  contemporaneous  with  the  French 
Revolution,  and  which  had  continued  through  the  Napoleonic 


wars,  had  spread  over  nearly  all  Europe.  Even  England  had 
submitted  to  the  continental  ways  of  studying  mathematics, 
—  not  quite  completely,  but  still  far  enough  to  give  a  good 
deal  of  community  of  spirit  between  the  English  and  foreign 
astronomers.  In  Germany  and  the  Baltic  provinces  of  Russia 
there  were  astronomers  —  Bessel,  Struve,  Gauss,  Argelander, 
Encke, —  who  taught  practical  astronomy  as  a  university 
discipline,  and  employed  their  observatories  as  practical 
means  of  impressing  their  theoretical  lessons  on  the  pupils. 
In  England,  and  I  think  France,  it  was  not  so  ;  theoretical 
mathematics  was  studied  to  the  completion  of  the  course  in 
it,  and  was  followed  by  the  more  abstract  parts  of  astronomy. 

The  pupils  of  the  astronomers  before  mentioned  were  not 
verywmanyl  but  yet  enough  to  keep  the  subject  alive,  and 
gradually  diffuse  a  knowledge  of  it  through  the  higher 
schools.  At  Cambridge,  in  England,  the  mathematical  in- 
struction had  little  by  little  taken  the  form  of  training  men  to 
pass  examinations  in  the  mathematics,  and  the  senior  wran- 
glership,  or  first  place  in  mathematics,  was  the  goal  of  the 
ambition  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  university.  Our  American 
courses  were  in  part  copied  from  the  English  studies  of  the 
last  century,  and  were,  little  by  little,  modified  to  suit  our 
circumstances.  But  their  adaptation  was  not  perfect,  partly 
because  no  definite  idea  was  dominant. 

At  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins' s  entrance  upon  the  presidency  of 
Williams,  in  1836,  a  new  spirit  soon  manifested  itself.  His 
scheme  of  studies  was  well  thought  out,  and  the  leading  idea, 
that  of  making  man  himself  the  subject  of  study  for  the  Sen- 
ior year,  tended  to  give  the  course  a  certain  roundness  and 
distinctness  to  the  mind.  He  taught  physiology  as  an  intro- 
duction to  philosophy  ;  a  natural  thing  for  a  trained  physician 


i6 


to  do,  and  it  was  a  very  advanced  idea  at  the  time.  This  new 
impulse  seems  to  have  led  to  the  building  of  the  Observatory  ; 
both  brothers  probably  thought  it  would  make,  as  it  has  done, 
the  study  more  vivid  and  interesting. 

I  need  hardly  enlarge  here  upon  the  character  of  Albert 
Hopkins.  All  Williams  men  know  how  strong  in  all  respects 
he  was ;  what  an  admirable  helper  to  his  more  widely  cele- 
brated brother ;  how  high  and  pure  his  aims,  how  great  a 
factor  he  was,  especially  in  the  religious  life  of  the  College,  for 
so  many  years.  But  even  as  a  young  man  he  was  deeply  im- 
bued with  the  love  of  nature.  There  was  no  one  who  did  more 
to  interest  his  students  in  all  the  Creator's  wonderful  works. 
To  his  initiative  is  due  the  first  scientific  expedition  sent 
from  this  College  ;  for  many  years  he  was  the  leader  in  the 
exploration  of  these  hills,  which  has  been  so  fruitful  both  of 
health  and  of  knowledge  to  the  generation  now  middle-aged. 

I  presume  that  in  1834  he  had  arranged  for  the  purchase 
or  construction  of  the  transit  instrument  and  clock,  the  latter 
still  in  active  employment  as  a  time  keeper  for  ordinary  as 
well  as  for  scientific  purposes. 

During  his  visit  to  Europe,  too,  he  undoubtedly  learned 
much  of  the  interest  in  the  return  of  Halley's  comet,  expected 
to  occur  within  a  year ;  and  on  his  coming  back  he  soon 
began  the  construction  of  an  observatory.  He  built  this 
chiefly  at  his  own  expense,  and  partly  with  his  own  hands  ;  he 
even  worked  in  the  stone-quarry,  getting  out  its  materials. 

It  is  a  quaint  little  structure,  but  well  planned  and  built  for 
its  purpose.  The  ground  plan  is  that  of  a  central  portion  sur- 
mounted by  a  dome,  with  two  wings  ;  very  much  like  many 
observatories  then  and  now.  It  is  still  used  for  gazing  at  the 
heavenly  bodies,  and  is  useful  for  the  students  in  a  variety  of 


ways.  Its  replacement  for  scientific  purposes  by  an  observa- 
tory upon  a  new  site  is  due  to  the  situation,  now  partly  sur- 
rounded by  trees  ;  so  that  if  the  attempt  had  been  made  to 
mount  in  it  the  beautiful  meridian  instrument  which  Mr.  Field 
gave  the  College  in  1881,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  sacri- 
fice many  of  the  ornaments  of  the  campus.  The  authorities 
were  naturally  unwilling  to  do  this,  and  preferred  to  provide 
more  room  in  a  retired  spot,  and  Mr.  Field's  great  kindness 
was  again  manifested  in  providing  the  building, —  the  "  Field 
Memorial  Observatory."  In  1869  he  had  founded  the  Pro- 
fessorship, and  so  gave  Professor  Hopkins  release  from  other 
duties  in  his  declining  years. 

The  Hopkins  Observatory  was,  as  I  have  implied,  the  first 
in  this  country  of  a  permanent  character.  Every  such  build- 
ing previously  erected  or  arranged  for  the  purpose,  was  tem- 
porary in  its  very  nature  ;  there  is  no  one  of  these  now 
standing.  Of  course  Rittenhouse,  and  that  admirable  observer 
the  elder  Bond,  and  other  astronomers,  had  their  private 
observatories  in  connection  with  their  houses  ;  but  our  Pro- 
fessor was  the  first  actually  to  erect  an  observatory  for  public 
purposes.  It  was  chiefly  built  in  1837,  and  dedicated  on  June 
12,  1838  ;  it  is  the  fiftieth  year  from  this  which  we  now  com- 
memorate. 

I  do  not  think  that  in  so  generously  devoting  his  savings 
to  the  College  for  this  purpose,  grof  ess  or  H  opk  ins  i  n  fr^rj  fl  <y1 
making  regular  courses  of  observation.  For  this  his  duties 
were  too  multifarious ;  his  teaching  included  at  first  all 
the  mathematics  and  natural  philosophy  of  the  course ;  and. 
practical  astronomy  is  a  profession  by  itself,  usually  requiring 
for  its  highest  perfection  the  devotion  of  a  life-time.  There 
are  those,  it  is  true,  who  have  become  distinguished  astron- 


i8 


omers  while  engaged  in  other  professions, —  the  musician, 
William  He'rschel,  the  physician,  Olbers,  the  shipmaster  and 
man  of  business,  Bowditch.  But  Professor  Hopkins  felt  his 
true  mission  to  consist  in  moulding  character  by  the  influence, 
direct  and  indirect,  of  the  religious  life  ;  he  was  ever  an  active 
missionary. 

His  idea  was  rather  that  of  using  the  Observatory  to 
make  tangible  his  teaching  of  the  science  ;  to  give  the  in- 
struction emphasis  and  force  by  actual  sight  where  the 
abstractions  were  too  deep  for  the  pupils'  minds  ;  and  also  to 
interest  one  or  the  other  bright  student  to  use  the  instru- 
ments for  himself,  and  thus  awaken  slumbering  talent. 

In  the  history  of  American  astronomy  this  first  establish- 
ment of  a  permanent  observatory  is  a  striking  landmark.  Up 
to  that  time  all  efforts  to  establish  one  had  failed.  People 
were  too  materially  inclined,  it  would  seem,  to  encourage  such 
an  ideal  science.  What  was  known  of  astronomy  seemed  far 
distant.  Even  the  practical  every-day  uses  of  the  science 
were  overlooked  or  despised  ;  I  have  read  a  surveyor's  peti- 
tion to  Congress,  begging  to  be  released  from  the  require- 
ments to  run  due  north  and  south  lines  ;  he  lost  too  much 
time  in  watching  for  the  Polar  Star  on  foggy  evenings  ;  he 
thought  lines  run  in  any  direction  would  do  as  well,  provided 
they  were  tolerably  straight.  Time-pieces  were  kept  roughly 
correct  by  "  noon-marks  "  and  other  rude  contrivances,  and 
few  felt  the  need  of  more  accurate  subdivision. 

Congress  had  sternly  set  its  face  against  the  establishment 
of  an  observatory.  The  Coast  Survey  received  its  money  on 
condition  that  none  of  it  should  be  spent  for  any  such  pur- 
pose. The  Survey  had,  it  is  true,  collected  transit  instru- 
ments and  telescopes,  with  which  observations  could  be  made  ; 


19 

and  the  army  engineers  had  also  their  little  plant  of  similar 
apparatus. 

Lieutenant  GillisSj  as  I  have  before  mentioned,  made  astror 
nomical  observations  from  1838  to  1842,  in  a  cabin  on  Capitol 
Hill,  and  was  enabled  to  show  more  or  less  of  his  work  to  vis-\ 
iting  Congressmen,  and  to  dispel  in  some  degree  their  preju-  ' 
dices.     In  1838,  also,  an  observatory  was  begun  at  Hudson, 
Ohio,  under  Elias  Loomis,  who  observed  pretty  regularly  for 
several  years.    A  year  or  two  later  Sears  C.  Walker  and  E.  O. 
Kendall  built  the  Central  High  School  Observatory  ofl^Phila- 
delphia,  and  began  observations  and  computations. 

At  West  Point  the  need  of  an  observatory  was  strongly 
felt,  and  Professor  Bartlett  went  abroad  in  1840  to  order  in- 
struments and  visit  observatories.  On  his  return,  rooms  were 
provided  for  the  instruments  in  the  new  library  building  of 
the  school ;  in  this  we  see  the  effect  of  the  prejudice  which 
would  not  allow  a  separate  observatory  to  be  paid  for  out  of 
public  money. 

Finally,  in  1842,  Congress  authorized  the  building  of  a 
"  Depot  of  Charts  and  Instruments ; "  the  present  Naval 
Observatory  at  Washington  under  a  disguised  name.  It  is 
one  of  the  faults  of  our  system  of  government,  that  appropri- 
ations are  often  made  without  a  very  distinct  knowledge  on 
the  legislators'  part  of  the  use  for  which  the  money  is  in- 
tended. The  astronomers  of  the  observatory  were  at  first  to 
be  naval  officers ;  partly  of  the  line,  lieutenants  and  passed 
midshipmen,  partly  the  so-called  professors  of  mathematics. 

«qA0U£>l*)**MA 

x^^These  were  a  small  corps  of  educated  men,  whose  duties  had 
\  been  to  go  to  sea  and  teach  the  midshipmen  navigation  ;  their 
I  number  became  needlessly  large  when  the  Naval  Academy 

/      was  founded,  and  the  midshipmen  concentrated  at  Annapolis  ; 


so  that  several  of  the  "  professors  "  were  ordered  to  the  ob- 
servatory. The  corps  is  still  kept  up,  and  has  contained 
many  distinguished  astronomers. 

The  next  large  observatory  founded  was  at  Cambridge.  In 
1843  appeared  a  remarkable  comet ;  probably  a  fragment  of  a 
much  larger  body  which  at  some  past  time  has  been  broken 
up  by  its  near  approach  to  the  sun.  It  went  within  100,000 
miles  of  the  sun's  surface,  and  was  subject  to  enormous  heat 
and  powerful  attraction.  It  was  visible  in  full  daylight,  as 
was  the  comet  of  1882,  which  some  of  you  may  remember  ; 
probably  not  the  same  as  the  comet  of  1843,  but  another 
broken  piece  of  the  same  original  body.  In  the  study  of  the 
comet  of  1843,  Professor  Benjamin  Peirce  was  much  inter- 
ested, and  he  used  his  great  eloquence  to  impress  on  the 
Boston  men  of  wealth  the  need  of  a  large  observatory. 

Some  time  before  this  Mr.  W.  C.  Bond  had  been  invited  to 
remove  to  Cambridge  with  his  instruments,  and  a  house  be- 
longing to  Harvard  College  had  been  fitted  up  for  him,  so 
that  there  might  be  an  observatory  at  Cambridge,  and,  nomi- 
iplly  at  least,  under  college  authority.  Peirce's  appeal  was 
/ably  seconded  by  J.  Ingersoll  Bowditch,  son  of  Nathaniel,  and 
jimself  an  astronomer  of  no  mean  attainments,  but  better 
known  as  an  active  business  man  in  his  father's  footsteps. 
He  has  always  shown  a  lively  interest  in  the  observatory  and 
all  scientific  enterprises  about  Boston ;  and  by  the  efforts  of 
Prof.  Peirce  and  Mr.  Bowditch  the  money  was  raised  for  a 
great  telescope. 

The  order  was  given  in  Europe  for  a  refractor  fifteen 
inches  in  diameter,  equal  to  the  largest  then  existing.  It  is 
still  a  comparatively  large  telescope  ;  but  our  own  opticians, 
as  we  shall  see,  have  gone  far  beyond  its  dimensions.  The 


Harvard  College  Observatory  was  built  in  the  years  before 
1846,  and  the  great  telescope  came  in  1847.  A  few  years 
later  the  indefatigable  Peirce  was  laying  the  scientific  founda- 
tions of  the  American  Nautical  Almanac;  while  his  increasing 
reputation  attracted  about  him  a  few  mathematical  students 
of  high  ability  from  various  parts  of  the  country,  in  addition 
to  his  college  pupils. 

Lieutenant  (afterwards  Admiral)  C.  H,,  T^aviSf.  a  family  con- 
nection of  Peirce,  was  the  one  who  succeeded  in  persuading 
Congress  to  pay  for  the  calculation  of  an  American  almanac 
for  the  sailors,  and  release  us  from  a  dependence  upon  foreign 
nations,  which  might  be  troublesome  in  case  of  war.  The 
office  of  the  Nautical  Almanac  was  established  —  at  first  in 
Cambridge — under  Davis's  business  management  and  Peirce's 
scientific  control. 

Meanwhile  the  Coast  Survey  had  gone  steadily  on  ;  after 
Hassler's  death  it  was  placed  under  the  superintendency  of 
Professor  Bache,,  .of  Philadelphia,  a  great-grandson  of  Franklin, 
and  a  distinguished  graduate  of  West  Point.  From  Franklin 
he  seemed  to  have  inherited  both  scientific  ability  and  execu- 
tive and  diplomatic  capacity  to  a  high  degree. 

In  the  quarter  century  which  elapsed  between  the  first 
beginning  (1836)  of  our  Observatory  and  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war,  American  astronomy  had  made  great  progress. 
The  work  of  an  astronomer  involves  certain  professional 
habits  of  care  and  accuracy,  whether  he  be  chiefly  an  observer 
or  a  calculator ;  and  an  abstract  mathematician  does  not  always 
make  the  best  practical  astronomer,  for  the  latter  must  attend 
to  certain  every-day  matters  which  the  former  sometimes 
neglects.  The  best  cure  for  absent-mindedness  and  day- 
dreaming which  I  know,  is  to  observe  star-transits  ;  for  the 


stars  are  extremely  punctual ;  if  the  observer  wanders  off 
into  regions  of  abstract  thought,  the  star  will  not  wait  for 
him,  it  is  always  in  its  proper  place  at  the  exact  second. 

Then,  there  are  mechanical  operations  to  be  performed 
which  sometimes  involve  a  good  deal  of  manual  labor ;  and 
the  man  who  has  to  do  this  must  be  skilled  in  the  science  ; 
even  the  subordinates  in  an  observatory  need  education  ;  they 
must  have  a  good  deal  of  mathematics  at  their  fingers'  ends, 

One  great  advance  in  mathematics  during  the  present  cen- 
tury is  the  theory  of  the  errors  of  observation  which  we  owe 
to  Gauss,  and  which  shows  us  how  to  distinguish  between 
good  observations  and  bad,  and  even  between  blunders  and 
the  necessary  imperfections  of  our  senses. 

By  1 86 1  this  country  had  acquired  what  I  may  call  a  school 
of  astronomers.  That  is,  there  were  many  observatories,  — 
public  and  private  — with  far  too  little  money  for  their  main- 
tenance in  regular  activity  it  is  true,  but  with  here  and  there 
an  observer  or  calculator  who  knew  how  to  use  the  instru- 
ments and  the  results  of  observation.  Any  young  man  who, 
like  Rittenhouse  or  Bowditch,  felt  himself  impelled  to  study 
astronomy,  could  find  instructors,  and  after  sufficient  training 
could  usually  get  remunerative  employment.  He  could  also 
gain  the  ear  of  a  public  interested  in  such  things  ;  by  the  bet- 
ter newspapers,  if  what  he  had  to  say  was  of  a  popular  char- 
acter; or  by  the  scientific  journals  of  America  or  Europe,  if 
he  had  something  new  and  original  for  the  specialists.  There 
was  also  an  astronomical  journal  of  much  merit,  published  by 
the  zeal  and  munificence  of  its  editor,  Dr.  Gould. 

Some  of  the  early  achievements  of  our  astronomers  have 
been  of  permanent  use  to  the  science.  Of  these  the  most 
important  are  the  two  connected  inventions, — the  chrono- 


graph,  and  the  telegraphic  method  of  determining  longi- 
tude. 

The  chronograph  is  the  instrument  used  in  the  "American 
Method  "  of  observing  transits.  It  is  practically  a  telegraphic 
ink-writer,  or  other  register ;  connected  with  a  clock,  it  marks 
the  seconds  on  a  sheet  or  tape  of  paper ;  and  the  observer, 
who  has  to  find  the  exact  time  of  any  astronomical  phenom- 
enon has  simply  to  press  a  telegraph  key  near  his  instrument, 
and  the  time  is  recorded.  Similar  instruments  have  since 
been  used  to  measure  the  speed  of  thought,  and  compare  one 
man  with  another  as  to  quickness  of  apprehension,  or  willing; 
so  that  astronomical  methods  have  thus  been  introduced  into 
psychology.  In  the  old  way  of  taking  transits,  the  observer, 
while  looking  through  the  telescope,  was  obliged  to  count  his 
time,  second  by  second ;  to  do  this  without  mistake,  and 
write  down  the  small  fractions  of  the  second,  is  much  more 
difficult  than  to  observe  by  the  American  method. 

Very  soon  after  Morse's  inventions,  and  the  establishment 
of  a  few  telegraph  lines,  Walker,  Loomis,  and  other  American 
astronomers,  used  them  to  send  time  from  one  observatory  to 
another.  We  can  readily  see  that  by  the  earth's  steady  motion 
on  its  axis,  difference  of  time  is  equivalent  to  difference  of 
longitude ;  twenty-four  hours  correspond  to  the  whole  circuit 
of  the  earth,  and  every  hour  to  fifteen  degrees.  All  our  rail- 
ways are  now  run  by  Greenwich  time,  with  a  change  in  the 
whole  hours  only  ;  thus  seven  o'clock  of  railway  time  here  is 
simply  twelve  o'clock  at  Greenwich ;  and  our  trains  are  run 
on  the  time  of  the  seventy-fifth  meridian. 

Before  this  system  could  be  inaugurated,  our  astronomers 
must  find  out  how  their  observatories  were  situated  with  re- 
spect to  the  Greenwich  meridian  ;  or  at  any  rate  to  some 


meridian.  The  telegraph  was,  as  I  have  said,  first  employed 
in  America  for  this  purpose,  after  many  trials  of  other  meth- 
ods had  been  made,  with  partial  success.  Before  the  ocean 
cable  was  laid,  the  position  of  Harvard  Observatory  from 
Greenwich  had  been  determined  with  great  care  by  the 
Bonds ;  their  method  of  exchanging  times  was  to  send  a 
great  many  ships'  chronometers  backwards  and  forwards 
between  England  and  America. 

Our  astronomical  progress  had  been  most  considerable  in 
those  branches  which  are  of  practical  importance ;  but  yet 
there  were  those  who  gladly  took  hold  of  more  ideal  prob- 
lems. The  American  mind  is  peculiar ;  partly  from  heredity, 
partly,  I  suppose,  as  influenced  by  the  greater  command  of 
circumstances  possible  in  a  free  country.  The  American 
is  ambitious  in  intellectual  things,  if  once  his  interest  is 
aroused  ;  and  he  frequently  cannot  reconcile  himself  to  take 
a  second  place. 

A  striking  example  of  this  quality  is  seen  in  the  life  of 
Alvan  Clark,  the  great  optician,  who  has  lately  gone  from 
us  at  a  ripe  old  age.  In  my  boyhood  I  met  him,  then  a 
modest  portrait  painter  of  middle  age,  who  had  begun  to 
interest  himself  in  the  making  of  object  glasses,  and  to  hope 
that  he  could  by-and-by  compete  with  the  German  opticians 
in  telescopes  of  moderate  dimensions. 

One  of  his  early  object  glasses,  of  half  the  diameter  of  the 
Cambridge  telescope,  is  that  belonging  to  the  equatorial  of  the 
Williams  College  Observatory,  given  by  that  constant  friend 
of  the  College,  Amos  Lawrence.  Mr.  Clark  did  not  then  con- 
struct the  machinery  of  entire  telescopes,  and  the  mounting 
is  by  an  inferior  mechanic,  and  not  very  good, 


It  was  not  long  before  Mr.  Clark's  reputation  increased, 
and  he  received  some  orders  from  England.  His  acquaintance 
with  the  English  amateur  astronomer  Dawes,  gave  him  oppor- 
tunity to  learn  what  a  very  sharp-sighted,  careful  observer 
desired  in  his  object-glass, —  for  Mr.  Dawes  was  extremely 
critical, —  and  he  was  finally  enabled  to  surpass  even  the  Ger- 
man makers  in  the  precision  of  the  images  seen  in  his  tele- 
scopes. At  this  point  he  was  assisted  by  liberal  capitalists  to 
set  up  a  larger  establishment,  and,  with  his  sons,  to  enter 
upon  telescope-making  on  a  greater  scale. 

His  first  great  telescope,  belonging  to  the  Chicago  Observa- 
tory, was  completed  in  1865  ;  the  object-glass,  larger  than 
any  then  existing,  had  been  made  several  years  before.  From 
that  date  till  his  death  in  1887,  he  was  actively  at  work, 
though  already  an  old  man  ;  and  my  last  visit  to  him  two 
years  ago,  was  made  in  his  workshop,  where  he  was  busy  on 
the  greatest  object-glass  now  existing,  one  of  more  than  twice 
the  diameter  of  the  Harvard  telescopes.  This  glass,  that  of 
the  Lick  Observatory,  in  California,  was  preceded  by  one 
which  gave  him  a  great  triumph.  He  had  displaced  his 
competitors'  instruments  in  America,  wherever  increased 
dimensions  were  called  for ;  but  the  great  Imperial  Observ- 
atory of  Russia,  at  Pulcova,  near  St.  Petersburg,  was  in  the 
market  for  such  an  instrument. 

The  Struves,  father,  sons,  and  grandsons,  have  long  been 
known  as  among  the  most  careful  observers.  But  the  present 
head  of  the  family  became  convinced  that  in  his  own  special 
line  of  work  he  needed  a  more  powerful  telescope ;  and  what 
he  learned  of  the  performance  of  the  darks'  glasses  led  him 
to  give  them  the  order  for  the  optical  part  of  the  instrument. 
The  mechanical  portion  was  made  in  Hamburg,  by  the  Rep- 


26 


solds,  who  are  the  greatest  mechanicians  of  the  world,  the 
makers  of  our  fine  meridian  circle. 

The  last  twenty-five  years  have  brought  much  material  ad- 
vancement to  the  science  in  this  country.  It  is  hardly  possible 
to  go  deeply  into  it  ;  in  many  respects  it  is  a  repetition  of  the 
earlier  history.  Observatories  have  been  founded  in  new 
places,  sometimes  with  means  for  their  maintenance,  at  other 
times  without.  Some  of  the  older  ones  have  received  large 
accessions  of  invested  funds,  and  have  thus  been  enabled  to 
do  more  ;  this  is  notably  the  case  at  the  Harvard  Observatory, 
which  has  been  given  the  handsome  fortunes  of  Robert  Treat 
Paine,  the  amateur  observer  of  the  earlier  time,  and  of  Uriah 
Boyden,  an  inventor  of  turbine  wheels,  who  had  been  greatly 
aided  by  Benjamin  Peirce's  knowledge  of  the  higher  mathe- 
matics. Boyden's  bequest  requires  the  establishment  of  a 
mountain  observatory ;  his  trustees  have  placed  it  under  the 
Harvard  management,  so  that  the  mountain  observations  will 
be  calculated  at  Cambridge.  The  ability  and  success  of  our 
younger  astronomers  in  handling  deep  and  difficult  problems 
has  been  proved  entirely  adequate ;  I  think  we  have  never 
lacked  the  men,  but  it  is  only  lately  that  they  have  found 
education  and  encouragement. 

Many  able  astronomers,  too,  have  come  to  us  from  foreign 
countries,  among  whom  is  our  Nestor,  Dr.  Peters,  who  is  with 
us  on  this  occasion.  I  dare  not  attempt  to  say  how  many 
small  planets  he  has  discovered  within  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century  ;  but  his  other  work  has  been  enough  by  itself  to  give 
his  observatory  a  high  reputation  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

It  is  pretty  plain  that  the  public  mind  has  changed  its 
attitude  toward  astronony.  We  now  find  more  general  intelli- 
gence on  the  subject ;  more  disposition  to  believe  in  astrono- 


mers  ;  more  encouragement  to  those  of  them  who  are  still 
struggling  with  difficult  problems  ;  more  pride  in  their  achieve- 
ments. European  scientists  now  come  occasionally  to  see 
what  is  doing  here ;  the  profession  of  an  astronomer  is  a 
recognized  career. 

What  then  shall  be  the  future  of  our  science  in  this 
country  ? 

Two  things  are  plain  :  first,  that  the  great  benefactions  to 
colleges  help  all  the  sciences ;  and  second,  that  original 
investigation  is  much  more  prominent  as  a  feature  of  college 
work  than  ever  before. 

We  have  giant  telescopes  enough  in  this  country  ;  Alvan 
Clark's  sons  will  doubtless  keep  up  the  supply  of  large 
instruments  ;  but  we  need  to  look  at  the  science  a  little 
more  deeply  on  the  intellectual  side.  I  would  remind  you_ 
that  our  college  studies  are  largely  traditional ;  that  astrono- 
my, along  with  geometry  and  music,  was  one  of  the  studies 
of  the  old  Quadrivium,  and  that  perhaps  a  recasting  of  our 
courses  may  be  possible  and  beneficial. 

I  am  a  believer,  as  are  other  college  instructors  of  some 
eminence,  in  the  disciplinary  value  of  astronomy  as  an  inde- 
pendent study.  The  mathematics  have  their  value,  and  a 
very  high  one  it  is  ;  but  the  lower  mathematics,  especially 
arithmetic,  have  been  overdone  in  a  certain  direction  ;  I  mean 


that  of  riddles,  puzzles, —  brain-spinning,  as  the  Germans  call 
it.  While  our  boys  and  girls  are  given  problems  to  solve 
which  quite  exceed  their  thinking  powers  —  I  don't  suppose  I 
could  ever  have  gone  successfully  through  Greenleaf  s  National 
Arithmetic  till  I  had  graduated  from  College  —  their  minds 
are  quite  undeveloped  in  the  power  of  observation,  and  they 
are  often  imperfectly  trained  in  the  four  ground  rules,  espe- 


28 


ijg^^  So  far  as  my  own  experience  goes, 


the  best  mathematical  training  is  that  which  deals  with  tangi- 
ble objects  ;  the  abstractions  should  have  a  sensible  basis. 

I  would  then  have  the  observation  of  the  common  phenom- 
ena of  nature  accompany  the  study  of  arithmetic  and  geometry 
in  the  common  schools.  The  pupils  should  learn  to  watch 
the  barometer  and  thermometer,  sunset  and  sunrise,  the 
phases  of  the  moon,  the  motions  of  clouds  ;  they  should  know 
the  pole-star,  Ursa  Major,  Orion,  the  Pleiades,  Leo,  the  Scor- 
pion ;  should  learn  to  distinguish  between  the  stars  and  the 
planets,  to  watch  for  the  aurora  borealis,  to  note  the  colors  of 
the  rainbow.  The  high  school,  or  college  preparatory  school, 
should  always  have  its  telescope,  and  some  simple  means  of 
accurately  keeping  time  ;  a  few  notions  of  scientific  astrono- 
my should  not  fail  to  be  inculcated. 

In  college,  the  professor  of  astronomy  should  have  time 
and  opportunity  to  interest  even  the  Freshmen  in  his  study  ; 
I  do  not  mean  that  he  should  give  them  formal  teaching, 
this  may  well  be  reserved  for  later  years.  But  he  should 
have  a  variety  of  instruments,  some  of  the  inexpensive  kind 
made  now-a-days,  for  gazing  purposes  ;  or  old  telescopes,  out 
of  fashion  for  observation,  so  that  one  or  another  of  the 
students  could  watch  the  heavens  for  himself.  Informal 
instruction  may  always  well  precede  the  more  formal  ;  and 
occasional  observatory  evenings  with  interesting  objects 
could  be  arranged,  so  that  a  good  part  of  our  classes 
might  enter  on  the  regular  study  of  the  science  with  some 
distinct  notions. 

To  introduce  the  work  I  have  described  into  our  common 
schools  will  take  a  long  time,  perhaps  a  generation.  But  it 
seems  a  waste,  when  we  open  any  mathematical  school-book 


29 


and  find  in  it  so  much  that  refers  to  a  merely  imaginary 
world ;  and  then  to  hear  from  business  men  and  college  pro- 
fessors that  all  this  training  leads  to  nothing  definite ;  and, 
when  the  young  men  are  nearly  through  their  college  course, 
to  find  them  unable  to  tell  the  points  of  the  compass  in  a 
strange  place,  or  even  in  their  own  college  town ;  or  not 
aware  that  when  the  mopnjis^full  it  rises^  very  nearly  at 
sunset^ 

The  colleges  have  begun  to  do  their  part  in  teaching  the 
teachers.  Courses  in  practical  astronomy  are  now  given  in 
many  institutions  ;  the  instruments  can  be  used,  and  the 
results  of  observation  calculated,  by  the  few  who  elect  this 
subject. 

It  is  more  difficult  than  it  ought  to  be  to  go  very  far  in 
these  studies,  because  the  habit  of  applying  the  earlier  mathe- 
matics to  tangible  objects  is  unformed.  The  young  man  is  at 
first  confused  when  you  tell  him  that  he  must  measure  the 
sides  or  angles  of  his  spherical  triangle.  He  has  always 
thought  a  spherical  triangle  to  be  an  abstraction.  Moreover, 
he  cannot  always  handle  even  his  arithmetic  with  facility  ; 
and  certainly,  again  and  again  I  have  found  mistakes  in  diffi- 
cult calculations,  which  the  student  himself  could  not  detect, 
to  lie  in  carrying  wrongly  in  addition  or  subtraction. 

A  return  to  nature  in  our  whole  method  of  education  — 
even  in  the  elementary  teaching  of  Greek,  that  bugbear  to 
some  so-called  educators  —  is  now  actually  going  on  ;  the 
next  generation  will  reap  the  benefit.  Could  I  have  learned 
Greek  and  Latin  as  my  colleagues  are  now  teaching  them, 
I  should  have  had  many  more  interested  hours  ;  and  other 
subjects,  history,  biology,  physics,  are  now  taught  by  better 
methods. 


The  college  observatory  of  the  future,  in  this  country, 
should  contain  a  good  many  moderate  instruments ;  none 
very  gigantic,  but  some  of  that  handy  size  which  is  best 
adapted  to  advance  the  science.  A  giant  instrument  renders 
the  observer  helpless,  if  he  has  not  a  file  of  soldiers,  or  other 
servants,  to  help  him  move  the  machinery ;  one  which  he  can 
just  conveniently  handle  leaves  him  free  to  work,  and  always 
shows  him  objects  enough  to  observe.  If  he  have  a  trained 
eye,  that  in  itself  is  equivalent  to  an  increase  in  the  size  of 
his  instrument. 

I  hold  that  in  a  strong  college,  independent  work,  to  ad- 
vance the  science,  should  be  going  on ;  the  students  will  be 
benefited  by  the  closer  contact  with  realities  which  is  thus 
gained.  Moreover  the  teachers  themselves  can  better  be  kept 
from  rusting,  or  falling  into  a  treadmill  round  ;  they  can  be 
in  the  current  of  scientific  thinking,  even  if  their  problems  be 
modest.  But  along  with  the  best  instruments  to  show  the 
refinements  possible,  there  should  be  samples  of  simpler  and 
cheaper  ones,  partly  for  the  independent  work  of  the  pupils, 
partly  for  the  exploration  of  the  heavens  to  gain  immediate 
communion  with  nature  in  its  grander  aspects,  partly  to  show 
the  future  teachers  what  their  schools  can  afford.  The  general 
framework  of  mathematical  training  will  gain  largely,  the 
more  it  is  connected  with  modern  scientific  applications,  and 
thus  the  more  closely  it  is  conjoined  with  nature. 

I  may  be  permitted  here  some  quotations  from  a  modest 
but  deep  thinker,  whose  little  work  Emerson  recommended 
Carlyle  to  read,  the  late  Sampson  Reed,  of  Boston.  The 
book  is  called  "Observations  on  the  Growth  of  the  Mind." 

Mr.  Reed  says  : —  "  If  it  were  desired  to  make  an  individual 
acquainted  with  one  of  the  abstract  sciences,  this  might  best 


be  effected  by  leading  him  gradually  to  whatever  conduced  to 
the  growth  of  those  powers  on  which  a  knowledge  of  these 
sciences  depends  ;  by  cultivating  a  principle  of  dependence 
on  the  Divine  Being,  a  purity  and  chastity  of  the  affections, 
which  will  produce  a  tranquil  condition,  of  all  things  the  most 
favorable  to  clear  perceptions  ;  by  leading  him  to  an  habitual 
observation  of  the  relations  of  things,  and  to  such  continued 
exertion  of  the  understanding,  as,  calling  into  use  its  full 
powers  without  inducing  fatigue,  may  impart  the  strength  of 
the  laborer  without  the  degradation  of  the  slave  ;  in  a  word, 
by  forming  a  penetrating  mathematical  mind  rather  than  by 
communicating  mathematical  information.  The  whole  char- 
acter and  complexion  of  the  mind  will  thus  be  gradually 
changed,  till  at  last  it  will  become  (chemically  speaking)  in 
its  very  nature  an  active  solvent  of  these  subjects."  This 
return  to  nature,  in  our  teaching,  was  thus  eloquently  recom- 
mended in  1826  ;  it  is  gradually  becoming  accomplished  in 
the  scientific  studies  of  our  better  colleges. 

Astronomy  deals  with  immensity  of  space  ;  who  can  con- 
ceive the  enormous  distances  at  which  the  stars  are  from  us  ? 
The  nearest  one  is  forty  millions  of  millions  of  miles  from  us, 
or  nearly  that ;  the  light  is  six  or  seven  years  in  coming  from 
it.  The  little  star  which  was  seen  to  blaze  out  in  1866,  may 
really  have  burst  into  flame  before  the  discovery  of  America 
by  Columbus  ;  the  dim  cloudy  spots  which  we  see  in  so  many 
places,  and  are  tempted  to  call  world-stuff  (nebulous  matter  is 
the  usual  name),  are  so  far  that  no  human  mind  can  do  more 
than  guess  their  distance. 

It  will  be  well,  I  think,  if  we  can  interest  our  pupils — and 
I  do  not  mean  college  students  alone — in  the  contemplation 
of  the  heavens  as  well  as  in  the  scientific  study  of  their 


motions  and  phenomena; — if  the  telescope  can  become  an 
indispensable  piece  of  apparatus  in  the  highest  school  of  any 
locality,  even  a  village.  This  study  should  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  ordinary  common  observations  of  the  nearer  things 
around  us. 

But  looking  back  over  the  last  half  century  of  scientific 
progress  in  America,  we  have  every  reason  to  be  hopeful  for 
its  future.  America  is  the  great  republic  ;  every  man  is 
born  equal  to  every  other ;  if  the  bricklayer's  son  exhibits  the 
genius  of  the  century  in  mathematics,  he  needs  no  petty 
Grand  Duke's  favor,  but  will  be  recognized  and  helped  by  his 
fellow  citizens  and  the  organizations  for  study  which  have 
grown  up  during  our  few  centuries  ;  while  the  experience  of 
the  past  fifty  years  has  shown  that  these  organizations  will 
have  an  unexampled  growth  in  the  next  fifty  years  so  far  as 
predictions  in  any  human  affairs  are  possible.  American 
astronomers  and  American  instrument  makers  —  few  indeed 
half  a  century  ago — are  now  known  by  reputation  and  re- 
spected in  the  whole  civilized  world. 

The  first  permanent  American  Observatory  is  still  stand- 
ing, to  show  by  its  modest  dimensions  how  great  a  growth 
has  been  possible  in  half  a  century. 

NOTE. — In  the  Nation  for  August  16,  1888,  Professor  Love  of  the 
University  of  North  Carolina  gives  an  account  of  an  early  attempt 
in  1831  to  build  a  college  observatory  at  that  institution,  which 
ought  not  to  be  forgotten.  Dr.  Joseph  Caldwell,  then  President  of 
the  University,  was  the  builder ;  and  it  was  only  the  imperfection  of 
its  construction  and  the  death  of  Dr.  Caldwell  in  1835  which  pre- 
vented its  mention  in  the  histories  of  American  astronomy.  Profes- 
sor Loomis  seems  not  to  have  known  about  it  when  writing  his 
"  Progress  of  Astronomy  "  ;  and  Dr.  Caldwell  appears  to  have  had 
successors  who  were  not  interested  in  astronomical  science.  In 
fact,  the  observatory  was  burned  in  1838,  and  the  ruins  employed 
to  furnish  materials  for  a  kitchen. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


7TX5 


